Seriously, I've countryhopped myself and once you have a decent grip of the language, the best way to get low-friction contact with the locals is to strike random conversations with old people. With few exceptions, they love it when anyone at all talks to them, have interesting stories to tell, and are much easier to approach than your random person-your-age on the street. Try it. Give yourself a quota of one conversation a day. Talk to that granny that lives two floors above you to start with. Keep it up.
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Talk to old people.
Seriously, I've countryhopped myself and once you have a decent grip of the language, the best way to get low-friction contact with the locals is to strike random conversations with old people. With few exceptions, they love it when anyone at all talks to them, have interesting stories to tell, and are much easier to approach than your random person-your-age on the street. Try it. Give yourself a quota of one conversation a day. Talk to that granny that lives two floors above you to start with. Keep it up.